by Simon King
“Can drop you near Baton Rouge, if that helps you,” he said, once back in the driver’s seat. His wife had taken over for a couple of hours either side of midnight and it had given the old road veteran enough time to recharge his 63-year old batteries.
“Thank you, I really appreciate your help,” Tim had replied, sounding as gracious as possible. Inside, he was in turmoil, Sam never far from his mind.
“If you look for tankers, you might come across one doing a gas run out where you’re headed. Just a thought.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Tim said, shooting the old man a wink. An hour later, he watched as the semi trailer pulled out of the gas station, leaving him standing with an empty backpack on his back, a cap on his head and a burning vengeance in his heart.
Once the trailer’s lights had faded from sight, Tim turned towards the parked vehicles, didn’t see anything of interest and headed out of the parking lot. He knew the cameras were still watching and despite having travelled almost a thousand miles from his last known location, Mumma’s ingenuity would eventually locate him, regardless of how far he travelled.
As he turned his collar up and pulled his jacket a little tighter, Tim refocused his mind on the reason for this trip, reminding himself that there was bloodshed waiting for him at the end of this road. Whatever he meant to do, he knew the consequences of failure meant not only his own death, but also Samantha’s.
There was still a good 40 miles between where Henry had dropped him and his final destination and as Tim slowly walked along the side of i10, knew that a ride would probably be the best option. What he didn’t need was a random cop car rolling past and pull over to kill time questioning some drifter. So he turned to face the traffic coming up behind him, popped out his thumb and hoped to hell he’d strike it lucky.
As if willed along by the gods themselves, the very next vehicle to pass him pulled over and waited a few yards ahead of him. It was an old Plymouth Voyager, the paint looking faded and worn by age. Tim half ran to where it sat and as he neared it, a voice called to him through an open window.
“Jump in back, son. Got crap piled high on the passenger seat.” He did, pulling the side door open and sliding in to one of the seats. The man in the driver’s seat, although hidden in the shadows, dropped him a cursory nod in the rear view mirror. Tim returned it, then slid the door back along its tracks, the sound of it slamming shut reverberating around the cabin.
He sat back in his seat and took a quick look around the vehicle. There was a smell of something in the air that reminded him of hospital cleaners, but other than that, it was just a normal car.
“Thanks for stopping,” Tim said. “Not the best time to be out trying to find a ride.” The man didn’t respond and Tim wondered whether he’d heard him. “You headed to work or something?” he tried a little louder as the car turned back on the road. The man again didn’t acknowledge him and he wondered whether he was hard of hearing. He was about to sit forward a little and try again when he felt something prick his left buttock, the sting feeling cold like ice.
Before he had a chance to react, Tim felt his head suddenly feel woozy. The man looked back over his shoulder and smiled as Tim tried to grab a hold of the seat in front of him. His hand refused to respond, remaining limply by his side. The drug worked quickly and rendered him helpless within seconds. Just before the world disappeared into a wave of swirling confusion, he heard a voice, one that didn’t quite make sense. Whilst the words the voice spoke fell into place immediately, the sound of the robotic voice did not.
“Hello, Doodles.”
Despite lying back in front of the fireplace, Tim somehow knew he was dreaming. He could smell the pine logs burning in the fireplace, the timber crackling serenely as if adding to the mood of the room. They were naked again, both of them lying on their stomachs and feeling the heat on their faces. The rug made his skin itch, just as it always did and now, as he tried to give in to that itch, he couldn’t.
“What’s the matter, baby?” Evie whispered. She reached across and began to scratch at just the right spot on his leg. “Is that better?”
Tim nodded and tried to speak, but like his hand, his mouth refused to play ball, refusing to open and speak the words. He looked at her with increasing alarm, but Evie only smiled back at him.
His mind was screaming at her to help him, but without a willing mouth to deliver his message, he was left to just stare at her as she turned on her side. He stared at her body as she rested her head on one hand, her smile tormenting him.
“Why would you think it was your baby? You know it was Fenton’s,” she said. With her other hand, she began running a fingertip around her erect nipple, biting her bottom lip the way she knew excited him. “He did things to me you couldn’t even imagine.” She closed her eyes, squeezed her nipple between her fingers and moaned with pleasure. “But then, you were never up for the really exciting stuff, were you?”
All he could do was lie beside her and watch as she teased him, telling him the nightmare that he had lived with for so long. Unable to move, Tim watched as she bit her fingertip gently, smiling at him as the torture continued.
“What about this Sam? Think you have what she wants?” Evie asked, before bursting into laughter. “You need to wake up to yourself. You hear me? You need to…”
“…WAKE UP,” the voice cried again.
‘But not Evie’s voice,’ Tim thought to himself. ‘No, not Evie.’
“TIM, WAKE UP!” He could hear the voice, but his eyes refused to open, the lids feeling much too heavy.
‘Not Evie. But Sam? Sam’s voice?’ He tried to see again, a pain waking up somewhere high above him. His eyes briefly opened a tiny bit, a dim view of the world coming through the tiny slits. A shadow was moving around somewhere ahead of him, a shadow that was somehow calling to him.
“Tim, please,” Sam cried out again. He tried to open his eyes, the lids feeling like they were weighed down with bricks.
“Sam?” His voice sounded distant, as if not his at all.
“Yes. Tim, yes, wake up. You have to wake up now.” He closed his eyes again, squeezed them shut as hard as he could, then slowly tried to open them again. She sounded more panicked than he’d ever heard before and it brought him back to the pain somewhere above him. It reminded him of the damn itch from his dream, his hands unwilling to scratch it. As if trying to prove to himself that it was just a dream, he tried to reach up and touch the place where the pain hovered.
But the confusion remained as his hand refused to move. Only his fingers seemed to obey his will and they weren’t where they were supposed to be, building the uncertainty in his mind further.
Fighting his eyes one final time, Tim forced them open, focusing on the confusion that formed before him. He could see Sam opposite him, maybe a dozen or so yards away. She looked to be pointing up with both arms. Wanting him to see something? He closed his eyes, squinted and looked again. No, not pointing. Her arms were above her head, but she wasn’t pointing at anything. Her arms were bound above her, tied to a metal pole that was set into the ground behind her.
He tried to move his own arms, looked down and saw the bottom of the pole he was tied to, the base of it also set in concrete. He looked around a little more and saw that they were in some kind of shed, although it was made up of only the walls and roof. The floor remained gravel and barely-visible remnants of weeds. It was a huge space, maybe forty to fifty yards along each side.
“He’ll be back soon,” Sam called out, still trying to get his attention.
“Where are we?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know. I woke up here, like you.”
Despite the lack of windows or open doors, Tim knew that it must have been the middle of the day. He could feel the heat radiating down from the roof, a slight sweat already dampening his brow. His head ached from whatever drug had been given to him, but thankfully, the fog in his brain was clearing.
He looked over to Sam again and tried to
get a sense of her condition. Her plaster cast was still visible on her arm as it hung above her.
“Are you OK? Has he hurt you?” he called to her.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You think I would hurt her, Doodles?” the familiar robotic voice suddenly said from somewhere behind him. Tim tried to swing around for a better view, but the shackles bit into his wrist.
“LET HER GO!” Tim yelled immediately.
“What, and let her miss the fun?” Tim listened as footsteps walked somewhere behind him, closing in on a wide arc to his side. “I think not.”
The voice finally moved around to where Tim could see the shape materialize to the side of him. There was a skylight in the roof near him and as the shadow stepped forward, the sunshine lit it up, his old partner revealed at last.
He wore a patch over one eye, a scar leading the lower edge of it and reaching all the way to his neck. On one arm, he wore a prosthetic hook where a hand should have been. But it was on his throat that Tim saw the reason for his robotic voice. A black box was attached to it, the digital synthesizer working as his communication device. He simply stood for a moment and stared at Tim with his one eye.
“What? No hello for an old friend?” Fenton asked a few moments later, continuing to circle around until he was standing between Tim and Sam. He had been waiting for the moment for a long time and as he finally faced Tim, gave it time to properly sink in.
“What do you want?” Tim asked.
“Just you,” Fenton replied.
“So let her go,” Tim said, nodding at Sam.
“Maybe, but not right now.” He paused, looked at Tim and smiled. “You have no idea how long I’ve been looking forward to this here moment. Know what it took to swap the pills she was taking just so I could bring her here?”
“What the hell for? If you wanted me dead, why not just kill me? You could have done it much quicker than all this bullshit.”
“Yes, I could have. But I wanted to play first. You know, the way we used to play with the killers we ended. The way we used to take our time, let them know we were watching, before slowly ending them.”
“That wasn’t us, that was you, you sick fuck.” Fenton began to laugh, the sound of it a grotesque synthesized melody.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” he finally said. “Still just as selective with your memories as ever. That’s how you managed to convince yourself that Evie wasn’t your fault, wasn’t it? If you pretend to not remember it, then it didn’t really happen.” He stepped forward a little, Tim noting the slight limp he walked with. “She’s here, you know?”
“What?” Tim said, his stomach starting to churn.
“Yah, right out there. With me, where she always belonged.” Tim began to wildly rip his hands back and forth, the chain binding his wrists clanging against the post. The pain was biting into his wrists again, but the rage kept it numbed from him.
“PIECE OF FUCKIN SHIT,” he screamed, but Fenton only laughed. He waited for Tim to settle before speaking again.
“I dug her up long before anyone realized. Well, what was left of her, anyway. Buried her right here, just outside. You remember this spot, don’t you?” Fenton waved his arm from side to side like a game-show host presenting a prize. Tim looked around to where Fenton was gesturing and saw something he had missed initially.
There was something of a gravel road winding through the shed, stopping where his post was set. There was a very slight rise in the ground from one side to the other, as if they were on a small hill. As the realization dawned across Tim’s face, Fenton began to laugh again.
“Yes, my old friend. This is the very spot.” He leaned in a little. “I knew you’d guess it eventually. 982 miles. Not the distance from her grave to the place she died. But 982 miles from her grave back to where we first rescued her. You remember? The post where you are is where Clementine had parked his car. And,” he began, then turned slightly back to Sam before continuing, “that’s where we saved her. Right there was where she was lying. You remember?”
“Yes, I remember. So why bring us back here?” Tim asked, trying to feel for a way to break his shackles. Fenton saw his fingers investigating and pointed at them.
“Don’t bother. Padlock and chain, my friend. And I have the key right here in my pocket. Oh, by the way. Aren’t you curious how I found you?” He reached into his pocket and brought out a small black device. It was the size of a cell phone and Fenton spun the screen around for Tim to see. “Tracker. There’s a small sender unit that I attached to your boot weeks ago. Tiny enough to look like a small pebble caught in the tread of your boot. Wasn’t sure it would work, but I guess kudos to me.”
“What I want to know is how the hell you managed all this? You were dead,” Tim said, rolling his face to signify the room they were in. “How can you build this with no money?”
“Oh, I had money, kid. A shit load of money. Think John was the only one that knew about Xavier Ward’s secret?”
“What?” Tim asked, shocked by the revelation.
“Yup. Figured that shit out months before the unfortunate accident.” He tapped his hook with his working hand. “Wasn’t hard to get a nice chunk of change from the man. You know, as a promise to keep his secret. Then it was just a matter of setting up a new identity and start spending that hard earned money.” He paused to consider. “Wait, did you think I started this after that night?” He laughed again, the sound echoing off the walls. “I had this here building constructed three months before that night. I’d been planning your demise long before that fucken explosion took my life. Just as well I had a back-up one already in place.”
“Why? Tell me why?” Tim looked over at Sam, quietly hanging by her wrists.
“BECAUSE YOU TOOK HER FROM ME!” Fenton tried to scream, but the voice box held his volume down to where it only sounded mildly raised.
“Is that what all this is over? Because she chose me over you?”
“She wanted to be with me, but she wasn’t sure whether you would handle it. Unfortunately she cared about you too much to just dump you. And then that whole baby shit started.” Tim felt his anger flare again.
“I don’t know whether you noticed, dickhead, but Evie is dead. This, all this, it makes no difference. Want to get some sort of revenge on me because she chose me over you?”
“I want to kill you because it’s your fault she’s dead. You killed her. If you had of listened to me when I was trying to tell you Simpson wasn’t just one killer. I tried to tell you he was a twin, but you shrugged it off. You wanted the glory of ending that asshole and ignored all the signs telling you there was more to it. You killed her.”
“And I’ve had to live with that mistake ever since,” Tim whispered, only too aware of his error.
“You weren’t the only one.” Fenton took a couple of steps forward, stood less than two feet from Tim and stared into his face. “You killed her,” he whispered, then swung a fist, hitting Tim square in the face. Sam heard his nose break from where she hung.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE,” she screamed. Fenton turned and looked over his shoulder.
“You should worry about yourself, Samantha.”
Tim groaned, the fire in his nose burning so fiercely as the tears running from both eyes temporarily blinded him. He felt the warm blood trickle down his chin and into the front of his shirt.
“Coward,” Tim whispered. Fenton struck him again, this time with his hooked hand, slamming the prosthetic into the side of his face. Sam screamed again, but Fenton ignored her.
“Coward? You have any idea what it takes to kill the people I have? And I’m not the one hiding behind my job. Hey, who was the one too stupid to see a trap when it was so obvious?”
A new voice suddenly filled the air, one Tim only partially recognized. The sound came from Fenton’s pocket and as he lifted the recorder from it, Tim understood.
“Jump in back, son. Got crap piled high on the passenger seat.” It hadn’t been the driver at all,
the ruse working brilliantly.
“Quite a nice little game you’ve built yourself. What, with Xavier Ward’s money and all. You still haven’t told me why. Why, Fenton? Why go through all of this. What’s the endgame?”
“Think there’s an all important endgame? I’m sorry. Nothing so grand. I just want to see you watch another woman you care about die right in front of you. And then, I’m going to leave you here, tied up, to watch her body rot.”
Tim looked across at Sam, her face grimacing from the pain of her broken arm. He shook his hands against the restraints again, trying desperately to break their hold on him, but the chains held true. Before him, Fenton began to laugh.
Sam watched Fenton and Tim with their back-and-forth palaver, her arm feeling like a lead weight. The throbbing seemed to coarse through her entire body, positive her feet would soon quit entirely on her.
The surprise of waking up in this place had been a lot more of a shock than for Tim, having been unconscious for the entire journey south. Her head took more than an hour to clear enough for her to take in the surroundings when she did finally wake and Fenton didn’t speak a single word for the day and a half she’d been suspended from her shackles.
He had disappeared into a small room that appeared to look like an office of sorts, but reappeared on and off throughout. When she had asked for some water, he ignored her completely, simply shuffling by her and walking outside. She had seen moonlight at that point, the first indication of time.
When he returned, carrying Tim across his shoulders, reality struck her for the first time. If Tim was caught, there would be little chance that anyone would come to help them. Her only chance of rescue had been shackled right before her, the killer’s game almost complete.
Now, as she hung from her restraints, listening to the two of them, Sam began to feel something she wasn’t expecting. During all the time she had been hanging from her wrists alone, her biggest concern had been for Tim. It was as if she was worried about what he might be going through, trying to find his missing partner.